Driver in Halberstam crash gets 5 days in jail

REDWOOD CITY Community service also required; crash killed the author

Published 4:00 am, Friday, February 15, 2008

HALBERSTAM 1/C/23FEB99/SP/MJM David Halberstam, author of Playing For Keeps, a new book on basketball great, Michael Jordan. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MALONEY/THE CHRONICLE

HALBERSTAM 1/C/23FEB99/SP/MJM David Halberstam, author of Playing For Keeps, a new book on basketball great, Michael Jordan. PHOTO BY MICHAEL MALONEY/THE CHRONICLE

Photo: MICHAEL MALONEY

Driver in Halberstam crash gets 5 days in jail

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The UC Berkeley graduate student behind the wheel in the car crash that killed Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Halberstam in Menlo Park was sentenced Thursday to five days in the county jail and 200 hours of community service.

Judge Mark Forcum recommended that journalism graduate student Kevin Jones, 27, serve his jail sentence in the San Mateo County sheriff's work program, meaning he will probably pick up trash or do similar work rather than spend any time behind bars.

Forcum ordered Jones to complete his community service by helping students improve their reading and writing skills. He also ordered Jones to complete a driving course.

"This is one of the hardest types of cases," Forcum said before pronouncing sentence in San Mateo County Superior Court in Redwood City.

Forcum noted that Halberstam, 73, had died because of Jones' actions, but said Jones had taken responsibility and was remorseful. Halberstam's family was also "very forgiving," he said.

Halberstam's relatives were not in court, but his daughter, Julia Halberstam, 27, wrote in a letter to the judge: "My father would not have wanted to see Kevin Jones go to jail. Nor do I."

She wrote there is "no way to fill the hole that was left in my world when my father was killed.

"No one has ever loved me more clearly or wholly, and I loved him back just the same. I miss him every day."

Jones apologized in court to Halberstam's family and said he would dedicate his career to trying to live up to Halberstam's ideals.

"His memory will guide my decisions for the rest of my life," said Jones, who declined to comment as he left court.

He pleaded no contest in November to misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter in connection with the April 23 crash.

Jones will be placed on probation for two years. His driver's license has been suspended for one to three years, a Department of Motor Vehicles official said.

The author's widow called for a lengthy suspension given Jones' driving record, which includes a speeding ticket he received a month after the crash that killed Halberstam.

"A year of losing his license isn't enough," Jean Halberstam said from her home in New York.

Jones was arrested in March 1999 in Richland, Wash., for driving under the influence and marijuana possession when he was 19 years old, court records show. In addition, he was found to be most at fault in a March 2005 accident in Oakland, court documents show.

In the fatal crash, Halberstam was in the front passenger seat of Jones' Toyota Camry when it was broadsided at Bayfront Expressway and Willow Road in Menlo Park, near the Dumbarton Bridge. Jones ran a red left turn arrow and drove into oncoming traffic.

In his probation report, Jones said that "after crossing the Dumbarton Bridge and stopping at an intersection, I realized I needed to turn left at the intersection, and we were going straight. I told Mr. Halberstam what had happened and he said, 'Well, maybe one of these nice people will let us in.' I had decided to do that. Instead, I turned left."

Halberstam gave a journalism-school-sponsored talk at UC Berkeley two days before the crash. Jones said he had jumped at the opportunity when Halberstam asked for a student to drive him to Mountain View for an interview Halberstam had scheduled with NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Y.A. Tittle for his next book.

Halberstam won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 at age 30 for his reporting from Vietnam. He later turned to long-form writing and wrote 21 books, including "The Best and the Brightest," about how the United States became involved in Vietnam.

Julia Halberstam, in her letter, said her father was self-deprecating about his skills.

"He used to tell me he wasn't as talented as other writers," she wrote, "but he worked harder."